> Up until then we were supposed to learn to read by reading. It was the big thing then: learn to read the same way we learned to speak: by doing it. It worked

> Up until then we were supposed to learn to read by reading. It was the big thing then: learn to read the same way we learned to speak: by doing it. It worked for lots of kids. Not for me. My impression is that it's pretty much settled science that Mrs. Gordon was right and phonics is better than or as good as look-say for the vast majority of children. Most children might cope better than you did, but they may have done even better with Mrs. Gordon's phonics, and moreover the most successful ones may be "secretly" using phonics-type methods which they either worked out for themselves, or learnt at home or kindergarten.